Educational Change through the Lens of Complexity Science: Changing Thinking for Changed Learners

Abstract

As education professionals work in times of exponential change, how they think is as important as what they do. Our thought processes frame our creations—and for hundreds of years that frame has been a linear, Newtonian paradigm. Due to advances in hard sciences, we now know that there are other ways of framing our thoughts and understanding our world, and that is through complexity science. Complexity science is a powerful metaphor to use in reviewing our common understandings of school systems and how to reform them to better serve students. This paper includes a primer of complexity science terms and then uses those terms as a lens on school systems for educational professionals pursuing change to meet the needs of the Net Generation of learners as we move into the Information Age.